Former world boxing champion Eamonn Magee was convicted yesterday of beating up a woman in a flat.

Belfast Magistrates’ Court heard Louise Mullan was dragged to the ground by her hair before the 43-year-old ex-fighter began kicking and hitting her at the property in the north of the city.

The victim, a nursing home worker, said Magee launched the no-warning attack during a late-night drinking session at a friend’s flat in July last year.

But the thug claimed she had punched him up to 10 times in a way he likened to the legendary US fighter Marvin Hagler.

But finding him guilty of assault, Judge Peter King said: “I don’t believe a word I have heard from Mr Magee.”

He held that the boxer had given “a completely incredible version of events where he would have me believe he was somehow sparring with the victim”.

Magee, known as The Terminator during a professional career which saw him capture the WBU welterweight belt, will be sentenced next month.

He had left a bar with Mrs Mullan and her boyfriend to go back to a mutual friend’s flat in the Oldpark area.

She told the court: “All of a sudden he grabbed me by the hair and trailed me to the ground.

“He was kicking and hitting me, holding me on the ground. I was trying my best to swing back to get him off me.” Mrs Mullan said she was left with rib and leg injuries, forcing her to take unpaid leave.

Under cross-examination by defence counsel Sean O’Hare, she denied she had been “a bit lairy” and struck first.

Magee, of Eskdale Gardens, North Belfast, told the court: “As she went down she was punching me something shocking. She can fight like a man. My ribs were the worst. She was Hagler.

“Why would I do that to a woman? It’s not in my genes. Come on. If I had hit that girl I would have knocked her out, and it would only be one punch.”

But backing Mrs Mullan’s version Judge King said Magee had given “a performance so far removed from the truth that I put no weight in it whatsoever”.